protected attribute
What It Means
A protected attribute is any personal characteristic that could lead to unfair discrimination if an AI system treats people differently because of it. These are typically things like race, gender, age, religion, or disability status that are legally protected in hiring, lending, healthcare, and other decisions. The specific attributes that matter depend on your industry, location, and what your AI system is being used for.
Why Chief AI Officers Care
AI systems can inadvertently discriminate against protected groups even when not explicitly programmed to do so, creating serious legal liability and regulatory compliance risks. Companies face potential lawsuits, regulatory fines, and reputation damage if their AI systems show bias against protected classes. Additionally, discriminatory AI can harm business performance by excluding qualified customers or candidates.
Real-World Example
A bank's AI loan approval system might deny loans to applicants from certain zip codes at higher rates, which could constitute racial discrimination if those areas are predominantly minority communities, even though the system never directly considers race as an input variable. The zip code serves as a proxy for the protected attribute of race.
Common Confusion
People often think that simply removing protected attributes from their AI training data eliminates bias risk, but AI systems can still discriminate through proxy variables that correlate with protected characteristics. They also mistakenly assume protected attributes are the same everywhere, when they actually vary by jurisdiction and application context.
Industry-Specific Applications
See how this term applies to healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, tech, and insurance.
Healthcare: In healthcare AI, protected attributes include race, gender, age, disability status, and socioeconomic factors that coul...
Finance: In finance, protected attributes include race, gender, age, religion, national origin, and marital status that could lea...
Premium content locked
Includes:
- 6 industry-specific applications
- Relevant regulations by sector
- Real compliance scenarios
- Implementation guidance
Technical Definitions
NISTNational Institute of Standards and Technology
"An attribute that partitions a population into groups whose outcomes should have parity. Examples include race, gender, caste, and religion. Protected attributes are not universal, but are application specific."Source: AI_Fairness_360
Discuss This Term with Your AI Assistant
Ask how "protected attribute" applies to your specific use case and regulatory context.
Start Free Trial